Catherine of Alexandria
Born into a noble, possibly into a royal family, St. Catherine was a beautiful, learned, and wise maiden who converted to Christianity as a teenager. Legends differ in the telling of her life. Some say that she rebuked the emperor Maximinus (or Maxentius) when he ordered a general sacrifice to the gods. Others assert that she resisted the adulterous advances of the Emperor (Maximinus or Maxentius). All agree that she had a vision of the Theotokos and Christ, in which Christ, a child, gave her a ring as the token of their mystical marriage. This scene is a popular subject in Mediæval and Renaissance art. All agree that she disputed with 50 philosophers whom the emperor summoned to dissuade her from the faith. She converted them, and all the philosophers were burned. The emperor then ordered her strapped to a spiked wheel (now called the Catherine wheel) in the hope that the physical pain would break her spirit. When the wheel fell to pieces, the emperor ordered her beaten and imprisoned without food, again in the expectation that the physical discomfort would change her mind. Angels ministered to her, and a dove fed her. Catherine is said to have converted the empress and many soldiers, all of whom were martyred. She was beheaded c. 305. Angels are said to have transported her body, from which flowed milk, to the site of Moses' burning bush. In the IX Century, her relics were uncovered in a monastery that had been on the site since the VI Century. Her veneration was widespread in the Eastern and Western churches. The Roman church suppressed her feast in 1969.
Karen Rae Keck
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